for that baby. she wanted to be a mom. this wasn t somebody thinking about suicide. exactly. it made me wonder was he a murderer? you are trying to prove a murderer with pretty much no evidence. correct. is he kind of gloating he got away with it? he is thinking, well, catch me if you can. we are going to do her and her family justice. we are going to solve this murder. hello, and welcome to dateline . meg purk was a young mom to be, over the moon to be having her first child. then, just days before her due date, she died of an apparent suicide. her family struggled to understand why, but in a strange twist, a house fire set decades later would point to a possible answer and put investigators on a trail towards the truth. here is josh mankiewicz with secrets from the grave . wander through any graveyard, and you will find them, mysteries etched in stone. lives cut tragically short by war, disease, misfortune, and sometimes murder. many who arrested in
Who would want to murder you . And i just kind of looked at him like, what . I couldnt believe it. Was he watching me . That fire was set. Very calculating. Years before his wife killed herself. Yes. He claimed she committed suicide days before she was due to give birth to her first child. She was extremely excited for that baby. She wanted to be a mom. This wasnt somebody thinking about suicide. Exactly. It made me wonder was he a murderer . You are trying to prove a very old murder with pretty much no evidence. Correct. Is he kind of gloating he got away with it . He is thinking, well, catch me if you can. We are going to do her and her family justice. We are going to solve this murder. Hello, and welcome to dateline. Meg purk was a young mom to be, over the moon to be having her first child. Then, just days before her due date, she died of an apparent suicide. Her family struggled to understand why, but in a strange twist, a house fire set decades later would point to a possible ans
one block away. and almost exactly a year before? at almost the same time in the morning. for the past year, jim had lidel analyze the evidence from the blaze at scott purk s home. he was convinced that fire had been an inside job. and based on what he knew about arsonists, this fire was likely set by the same person. it s unusual for them to switch method once they have a pattern that works for them. find something that works. the will do something very, very similar on each of their fires. it had to be scott. we took that was also another scott was trying to show us that there is a serial arsonists in the neighborhood, but it wasn t him. because he left on the other side of town now. investigators were not fooled. mifflin and went lidel to the apartment complex where the purks had been living says their house burned down. the family car parked outside and still warm on that freezing night reeked of gasoline. and then in the apartment, we find a gas can sitting right
one block away. and almost exactly a year before? at almost the same time in the morning. for the past year, jim had lidel analyze the evidence from the blaze at scott purk s home. he was convinced that fire had been an inside job. and based on what he knew about arsonists, this fire was likely set by the same person. it s unusual for them to switch method once they have a pattern that works for them. find something that works. the will do something very, very similar on each of their fires. it had to be scott. we took that was also another scott was trying to show us that there is a serial arsonists in the neighborhood, but it wasn t him. because he left on the other side of town now. investigators were not fooled. mifflin and went lidel to the apartment complex where the purks had been living says their house burned down. the family car parked outside and still warm on that freezing night reeked of gasoline.
apartment complex where the purk secrets from the grave 1 s had been living says their house burned down. the family car parked outside and still warm on that freezing night reeked of gasoline. and then in the apartment, we find a gas can sitting right inside the apartment and a pair of boots that had fresh blood on them. that is just screaming to us, we have found our guy. of course, had scott purk always been their guy. that said, the lawmen were still no closer to actually making an arrest. you can t really connect scott to the gas used at either fire? correct. and nobody saw him, it s the middle of the night. exactly. so, you have a pretty strong circumstantial case, but not a tremendous amount of proof? right. and now we have to dot our eyes and cross our t s, do our due diligence. because he s our guy still.